The popular War Stories column, which presents humorous tales of life in the research trenches, has historically been compiled by Art Shulman, president of Shulman Research in Van Nuys, Calif. Each month in our e-newsletters we feature anecdotes from past War Stories columns and over time, we have received a handful of submissions from our e-newsletter readers who want to share their own outlandish or otherwise entertaining experiences of research gone just-slightly awry.
Submit your own War Story today!
"Pure water"
June 20, 2023
A researcher preferring anonymity tells about being an interviewer early in his career, conducting a survey sponsored by a particular regional brand of beer. The brand's advertising was based on the fact that the beer was made using pure water from a particular lake. One respondent, when asked if he found anything hard to believe about the advertising, said he did. The cause of his skepticism? "I once visited that lake and saw a man standing on the shore peeing into it," he said.
Obtaining customer reactions
June 5, 2023
Cheryl Simer recalls a focus group she conducted on bras, where one of her responsibilities was to dress a mannequin with various prototypes, and then obtain consumer reactions. Rushed for time, she had hurriedly put the bras on the mannequin. The fourth bra to be evaluated suddenly began to slip upward and snapped off the form, shooting up two feet in the air. The consumers took it in stride. With slightly disapproving looks they said they were not interested in bras that did that!
"Oh, he works in advertising"
May 22, 2023
Imagine how Donna Tinari-Sigfried felt when, while moderating a focus group on a new product being tested as a promotion by her telecommunications company client, a respondent said, "I love this new promotion, my dad sent me a whole bunch." "Your dad sent you these?" Sigfried asked, somewhat panicked, as a large contingent of agency and client personnel observed through the mirror. "Oh, he works in advertising for [the client company]," explained the consumer.
Older retirees
May 8, 2023
Doug Conwell once told about a opinion poll regarding the possible merger of two local municipalities. Respondents tended to be older retirees. The first night of interviewing, when a respondent was told the topic of the survey was the "merger," she replied - in horror " Murder?"
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Conwell and his group at first thought it was very funny. But when it started happening over and over again, they had to change the terminology.
Open-ended questions
April 24, 2023
Erin Read says she is often torn between cursing and loving open-ended questions. Pros: unfettered truths that amuse and inspire. Cons: 27 different ways of spelling Facebook.
Roach trapsÂ
April 10, 2023
Sherry Haub cites a focus group on roach traps she conducted early in her career. The session was held in one of the loveliest rooms she ever moderated in, with plants everywhere and a large skylight highlighting a big round marble table. The table featured a plate of elegant goodies for respondents to snack on, surrounded by a dozen of the client's roach traps, the intended subject of discussion.
The group was progressing nicely when suddenly all faces in the room registered surprise, then puzzlement, then dawning dismay as they noticed the Madagascar-sized roach perched insolently on the edge of the goodies plate, safe amid the armada of roach traps it had so casually negotiated on its way to the snacks.
Beer
March 27, 2023Â
Gail Fleenor tells of conducting in-store surveys in two small towns and receiving two types of refusals she’d never received before. One man refused to be interviewed because he was purchasing beer and was sure that somehow through the survey (which of course was anonymous) his pastor would find out that he drank.
Not on video
March 13, 2023
Dan Safreno recalls recruiting respondents to provide feedback on a few concepts. It was right as everyone moved to virtual in-depth-interviews, and respondents were told they had to be on camera and use a PC to view the concepts in order to participate. When one of the respondents logged into Zoom, he was not on video. The researchers asked the respondent to turn on his camera so they could see each other and quickly realized he was on his phone in his bathtub. After a little shock, the researchers reminded the respondent he needed to be on a PC to participate. He said it wasn't a problem and started to get out of the bathtub. The team didn't like the direction this was going and quickly ended the interview!
Behaviors and risks
February 27, 2023Â
Anthony Stanowski tells about conducting a community needs survey early in his career on consumers' health attitudes, behaviors and risks. One of the questions involved asking female respondents if they'd been pregnant within the past five years. A 74-year-old female laughed and said that if she had been, they would have surely heard about it by now. On the news.
A slight panic
February 13, 2023
Many years ago, Kevin Dona was as a young analyst working in the CPG arena, and had a colleague who was managing an in-home test of a new dip. She approached Dona one day in a slight panic and said, "I don't know what to do about these results." It was a simple question of where consumers expected to find the product in the store. Enough people selected "other specify" with the response "in the dumpster" that it was coded and showing up in the client tables. After tasting the sample myself, Dona recommended leaving that consumer suggestion.Â
The usual cast of characters
January 23, 2023
A client asked Doug Schorr if he had any stories from a week of shop-along and in-home ethnographies that were conducted in Dallas. At first the answer was a simple no, just the usual cast of characters. But then his team remembered the extremely flatulent dog (the respondent stated the dog was nervous of the interview), the cat in a dress chasing a wasp on the ledge, a 1940s murder house and being sequestered in a retail store while on lock down from a horrible hail storm. Maybe not just the usual after all!
Budgets
January 9, 2023
Ron Sellers recalled receiving a call from a potential client who ran a manufacturing business and was convinced she needed in-depth research to build market share. She spoke knowledgeably about focus groups, in-depth interviews, pre-/post-testing, etc. After taking calls from countless neophytes, finally Sellers had someone who understood research!
They talked for an hour about numerous strategies, finally deciding that their starting point could be a series of focus groups among different market segments, followed by quantitative work. Before they went any further, Sellers felt he needed to make sure they were on the same page in terms of budgets.
"Oh, I've got almost $500 set aside for research," she gushed.